Skip to main content
Dessert

Whole Wheat Pudding

A steamed pudding made with whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, milk, molasses, walnuts, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whole Wheat Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk, molasses, walnuts, and raisins; stir until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2½ hours.

  2. Serve with cream, foamy or lemon sauce, or a hard sauce flavored with lemon juice or sherry.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole wheat flour
Provides the dense, hearty structure and nutty flavor that define this pudding.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the pudding holds together after steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the dense batter.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with slight acidity.
Milk
Hydrates the flours so the batter forms a pourable mixture.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2½ hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the dense batter through without drying it. Letting the water boil dry or lifting the lid often can cause uneven cooking and a dry, heavy texture.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, milk, molasses, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Flaxseedfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, milk, molasses, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More whole wheat pudding recipes

Steamed 4 See all 6 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesWheat MuffinsWheat Muffins48 recipesWhole Wheat MuffinsWhole Wheat Muffins12 recipes